Iranian Parliament Committee: U.S. Military to be Treated like Terrorists if Iran Guards Declared Terror Group

The Algemeiner reports: Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) warned on Wednesday it would treat American troops as “terrorists” if President Donald Trump decides to designate the Islamic Republic’s most feared military arm as a “terrorist organization.” The threat against the US was speedily backed by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, widely portrayed as a regime “moderate,” and one of the key architects of the 2015 nuclear deal Tehran agreed to with six world powers.

A statement from the Iranian Parliament’s Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy on Wednesday declared, “The IRGC is entitled to treat the US forces the same way it treats terrorist groups.” The statement also repeated Iran’s now standard conspiracy theory that ISIS and other Sunni terrorist groups are “lackeys” of the US and Israel, claiming as well that “the IRGC has played a valuable part in restoring security to Iraq and Syria.”

The Trump administration has been deliberating since February on whether to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization, given its intimate operational involvement with terrorist operations both in the region and outside. The IRGC’s elite Qods Force is specifically authorized to carry out operations abroad, with Qods Force commander, Gen. Qasem Solaimaini, frequently being photographed in conflict zones in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.